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Lot Essay
This tondino is very similar to two others in Edinburgh, and they may perhaps have once formed part of the same set(1)although the reverse of the present lot has the addition of small lustred foliate fronds between the larger four groupings of lustred scrolling foliage which are present on all three tondini. The figures and landscape of one of the Edinburgh pieces is particularly close to the present lot, and they may be by the same hand(2).
Many of the details on this tondino have been added in lustre, giving definition to the landscape in the distance, the grass of the foreground and the breastplates worn by Apollo. This suggests that this tondino was made, painted and lustred at Gubbio, rather than being made and painted elsewhere and sent to Gubbio for lustring. Given the unusual degree of detail left to be ‘finished’ by the person applying the lustre, the lustre may perhaps even have been applied by the same person who applied the painted decoration. If this tondino is by the anonymous artist dubbed the ‘Decollation Painter’(3), it is less highly finished than some other pieces by this painter, which have unusually fine lustre which truly enhances and compliments the scene, rather than obscuring the painted decoration(4).
1. See Celia Curnow, Italian Maiolica in the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1992, pp. 65-66, nos. 68 and 69.
2. Curnow, ibid., no. 69.
3. After a bowl painted with this subject in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, see Timothy Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, Oxford, 2017, pp. 251-253, no. 111.
4. See for example a plate and a bowl in a private collection illustrated by Timothy Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica-Painting, Turin, 2018, pp. 394-397, nos. 174 and 175.
Many of the details on this tondino have been added in lustre, giving definition to the landscape in the distance, the grass of the foreground and the breastplates worn by Apollo. This suggests that this tondino was made, painted and lustred at Gubbio, rather than being made and painted elsewhere and sent to Gubbio for lustring. Given the unusual degree of detail left to be ‘finished’ by the person applying the lustre, the lustre may perhaps even have been applied by the same person who applied the painted decoration. If this tondino is by the anonymous artist dubbed the ‘Decollation Painter’(3), it is less highly finished than some other pieces by this painter, which have unusually fine lustre which truly enhances and compliments the scene, rather than obscuring the painted decoration(4).
1. See Celia Curnow, Italian Maiolica in the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1992, pp. 65-66, nos. 68 and 69.
2. Curnow, ibid., no. 69.
3. After a bowl painted with this subject in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, see Timothy Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, Oxford, 2017, pp. 251-253, no. 111.
4. See for example a plate and a bowl in a private collection illustrated by Timothy Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica-Painting, Turin, 2018, pp. 394-397, nos. 174 and 175.